Complaints about housing benefit or council tax benefit claims
This fact sheet is aimed primarily at people who have problems with a claim for council tax benefit or housing benefit (or local housing allowance) and may be considering making a complaint to the Ombudsman.
I have a problem with my housing benefit (or local housing allowance)/council tax benefit claim. Can the Ombudsman help me?
- Yes, as long as your complaint is about the way the council has dealt with your claim.
- But if you disagree with a decision the council has made on your claim, such as the amount of benefit you have been awarded, the amount of an overpayment or whether an overpayment can be recovered from you, you can take it to an independent appeal tribunal. We would normally expect you to appeal rather than make a complaint to us.
How do I complain?
- Unless the matter is urgent, you should normally complain to the council first. Councils often have more than one stage in their complaints procedure and you will usually have to complete all stages before we will look at your complaint.
- Then, if you are unhappy with the outcome, or the council is taking too long to look into the matter – we think 12 weeks is reasonable – you can complain to us.
- Where the matter is urgent or you are particularly at risk, we can usually look into your complaint even if you have not been through the council’s complaints procedure. This could be, for example, if you are a private tenant and your landlord is threatening to take you to court or evict you. You should explain this when you contact us.
- You should normally make your complaint to us within 12 months of realising that the council has done something wrong.
- To complain to the Ombudsman phone our Advice Team on 0300 061 0614 (8.30am to 5.00pm, Mondays to Fridays). You will be able to discuss your complaint with one of our advisers. You can text us on 0762 480 4299.
- You can complete an online complaint form.
If you can consider my complaint what will the Ombudsman look for?
We consider whether the council has done something wrong in the way it went about dealing with your claim which has caused you problems. We cannot say whether you are entitled to benefit or not. Some of the issues we can look at are:
- delay in processing your claim
- delay in paying you or your landlord the benefit after the claim has been decided
- delay in referring your case to the rent officer
- failure to make a payment on account where appropriate
- paying the benefit to the wrong person (eg direct to you when you have asked the council to pay your landlord)
- delay in dealing with an appeal, for example through failing to recognise your letter as a request for an appeal, or delay in sending your appeal to the independent appeals service
- failure to notify you properly of a decision and of your rights of appeal, or
- unreasonable delay in responding to correspondence (we normally consider it reasonable to allow the council one month to process your claim once it has the necessary information).
What happens if the Ombudsman finds the council was at fault?
We can recommend that the council takes action to put the matter right. This depends on what the complaint is about, but often we will ask the council to:
- determine the ongoing or backdated claim
- pay the benefit due
- refer your claim to the rent officer
- issue or re-issue a decision notice with the correct information and appeal rights, or
- consider an appeal or send it on to the independent appeals service.
We can recommend that the council pays compensation. The amount we ask for will depend on how you have been affected by what has gone wrong.
- Where we find that there has been unreasonable delay, we usually recommend a payment to recognise the anxiety and inconvenience caused. If you have got into arrears because of the delay, and your landlord is trying to evict you or the council has taken you to court for a council tax debt, we may ask for compensation for the additional distress.
- In deciding how much compensation to ask for we can also take account of what you have or haven’t done to help the council. So, for example, if you have taken a long time to provide information which the council needs to make a decision on your claim, or if you know that your benefit will only cover a small part of your rent but still do not pay anything towards it, we may have to reduce the amount we ask for.
We may recommend that the council improves procedures so that the same problems do not occur again. For example, in some cases we have asked councils to introduce systems allowing them to check when people are waiting for benefit claims to be processed before issuing summonses for council tax arrears.
Examples of some complaints we have considered
Mr W, a private tenant, made a claim for housing benefit and council tax benefit. The council took six months longer than it should have done to make a decision on the claim. In the meantime Mr W had to borrow money from friends and family to pay his rent. After we took up his complaint the council paid the benefit due, apologised for the delay, and paid him compensation of £150.
Mr and Mrs M are housing association tenants claiming housing benefit and council tax benefit. Mr M is seriously ill and his wife is his full-time carer. The council took over six months to re-assess their claim after they reported a change of circumstances. During that time their council tax debt built up. At first the council held back from taking action against them, but then, without checking whether the claim had been decided, the council referred the case to court. When they received the summons Mr and Mrs M went to an advice agency which made a complaint on their behalf. But the council ignored it and went ahead with the court action. Mr and Mrs M received a liability order and then a letter from the bailiffs. They also had a letter from their landlord about rent arrears.
After the advice agency complained to us, the council decided the claim, paid the benefit, withdrew the court action and costs, and paid £500 compensation. We also asked the council to review its procedures to make sure it had proper systems in place for suspending council tax recovery action while a benefit claim is being processed, and for identifying complaints.
Other sources of information
Our fact sheets give some general information about the most common type of complaints we receive but they cannot cover every situation. If you are not sure whether we can look into your complaint, please phone 0300 061 0614.
The Local Government Ombudsmen provide a free, independent and impartial service. We consider complaints about the administrative actions of councils and some other authorities. We cannot question what a council has done simply because someone does not agree with it. If we find something has gone wrong, such as poor service, service failure, delay or bad advice and that a person has suffered as a result the Ombudsmen aim to get it put right by recommending a suitable remedy.
Date Updated: 16/08/11